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Yes. There was some controversy about that.
But it was low-key and even time-delayed for a fait-accompli.
The government would have been restricted to make such a deal, and violated it in secret. The press found out anyway. 'Twas one-time-only', as they promised then until the next deal of that kind came along.
If it was in public debate, then at that time a ...
7
WRT the Chinese in particular, perhaps they just didn't care. They could buy their trepang from the people who harvested it, just as the could sell silk to merchants, without caring where the trepang came from, or where the silk went. With very few exceptions (such as Zheng He) the Chinese didn't do exploration, and certainly not the organized "...
3
I think the answer can best be understood by taking from the point of view of the people on the ground at the time: All they knew is that there were a few products of minor value to be gotten from a land located well beyond many other equally large (as far as they could tell) islands.
We know they were knocking on the door of a whole continent. But as far ...
3
In my experience of Indonesian historical education, which could often be described as 'propaganda', there is an emphasis on describing the Dutch as controlling Indonesia for 350 years. This is of course false, because the Dutch controlled Indonesia for just a few decades, and the modern day Indonesia is the continuation of the state that the Dutch created, ...
2
Geographic discovery like that of Australia is also political and was done by states. We have to think in terms of political authority. Who would have been interested in Australia and what Australia would have meant to (and be called by) them.
the Chinese themselves and other Asians never picked up any awareness
of Australia's existence. There's no ...
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